


Night at Eastwatch

by EverythingCanadian



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Multi, Past Relationship(s), Sharing a Bed, reference to canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 21:36:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19343119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EverythingCanadian/pseuds/EverythingCanadian
Summary: As the men prepare for their journey North beyond the wall they spend a day and night resting and sleeping properly before venturing out. This is where the Hound and Beric open up to each other, in the dim candle light of a shared bedroom.





	Night at Eastwatch

**Author's Note:**

> Don't own them.  
>  I knew where I wanted to go but it kinda went a few different ways before I got there.   
> Sorry for mistakes.

Beric knew that Sandor Clegane, The Hound of King’s Landing, was not into showing affection, let alone being close enough to someone to feel body heat. But that didn’t stop Beric from coming into Sandor’s room at the Wall. They had the rooms for the night, enough spare beds for twelve people at least as the barracks were nearly empty from men either dying of age or exposure. The rooms were bare and cold just like the cell they had been thrown into upon arriving. They wouldn’t head out past the Wall until morning. Which left nerves running through them all. 

The drink had been flowing and Thoros was still up with a couple night watchmen, leaving his and Beric’s bed cold from only one person under the covers, all bundled up. But Sandor, his room was the same, save he was the only one in it, too big to really share a bed for heat as a few of them were not used to the cold. Beric, Gendry, Jorah, and Thoros had paired up to conserve body heat through the night, The Hound was on his own in both sheer size and in his prickly nature towards ‘that nancy cuddling.’ 

The man was still awake when Beric knocked on the door and entered at the sound of a gruff answer. He closed the door quickly, hands going immediately to under his armpits for heat. “I see, you’ve gotten the same treatment as us, no fancy maids or fireplace for the Hound?”

Sandor’s dark eyes looked up from where he was huddled under the two blankets he had gotten from the quartermaster down the walkway. They could cut like glass normally, but they didn’t hold the same impact when he was shivering from being cold and immobile. “The fuck do you want?” He growled from where his mouth was muffled by his coat. 

“To find peace in this place.” Beric smiled before he let his face sober. “Thoros is drowning in alcohol still and my room is as cold as this one.”

“I’m not bloody holding you like some youngling’s doll. And you are really not getting in this bed. It’s mine and solely mine.” Sandor’s teeth started to chatter, hot air escaping his coat collar. Even in the candle light his nose looked red and chapped, and his scar looked sore from the skin contracting due to temperature. 

“I don’t need to be held Clegane, I just need some body heat or any heat that isn’t ale or wine.”

“The great hall fire exists.”

“That requires talking to people I don’t wish to speak to.”

“What about your fucking priest.”

“Again, he’s drunk and more than likely picking up a warm body for the night.” Beric swallowed thickly at that, remembering the last time he had walked in on Thoros and another man on their travels. It’s wasn't unpleasant, quite the opposite, and Beric knew that Thoros would never- at least not with him, his charge. 

Sandor was quiet for a moment, one that stretched and became a weight on Beric’s chest. He liked Sandor Clegane, preferred the no nonsense way about him, even became interested in him on their way up here. Maybe before then. 

“Alright ya nancy, get in here and be quiet about it. You can share but if you even touch me I will cut your balls off.” 

Beric let a lungful out in a relieved sigh, letting his still undone boots stomp on the wooden boards until he came to the edge of the bed, quickly shucking them off by what is now ‘his side’ and crawling in with his back to Sandor’s. There wasn’t much room but he didn’t care, letting the warmth from the bigger man permeate into his own coat as he laid flush with Sandor. “No need to cut them off if they freeze off.” 

“Well hopefully they won’t. The world doesn’t need another eunuch running around.” Beric could almost feel Sandor’s slight smile at that joke. 

It was another long pause before Sandor spoke again. “You love him don’t you? Thoros. I’ve seen the way you look at him when you can’t sleep. I don’t either at times. But you- are a different breed of man entirely. You don’t pine normally, you wait until everything else is silent and dark. Thought I was going crazy when you would snap your eyes to me and whisper for me to go back to sleep. But I knew you had an interest in him since I met you.”

Beric sucked in a sharp breath, tense as ever and thinking that this may have been a bad idea. “That is the most you’ve said at once since I met you Clegane.”

Sandor grunted. “And you’re avoiding the subject.”

Beric swallowed, not yet ready to open himself up to anyone yet. But here, in the semi dark, facing away from someone he’s grown somewhat attached to he speaks up about his own shortcomings. “I do- well I did. I spent a long time chasing him, something that I knew would hurt me. I saw in the flames what would happen to him. I’ve distanced myself as best I can from him where my heart is concerned. I’ve been with him twice and no more. He’s a man of many lovers and that’s how it is. I try not to think about anything like that.” Beric can feel his throat tighten at the back, feel angry tears in his eye. He’s known how it ends for Thoros for a long while. He laughs gruffly. “He’s not going to be coming back with us Clegane, what you’ve seen on our way here is contemplation of the past.”

Sandor lets everything hang in the balance with those words, finally moving to turn around to face Beric’s back. He pulls the blankets straight again when he settles but they’ve now both lost the heat at their backs. Sandor pulls on Beric’s shoulder so he can see his eye, looking over the man in his bed. “For fucks sake, you’ve lived with that? How damn long?”

“Enough for it to eat away at me.” Beric blinked hard, squeezing his eye closed to let himself see a bit better and not the edge of tears. “Enough for me to stay away and let him have his life unburdened. But I suspect he knows already, saw it in the fire when he was teaching you how to see from the lord of light.” He swallows heavily trying to roll away. “And he knows that I loved him, knew since the beginning when I told him.” Beric tried to turn, being stopped by the hand holding him down and towards Sandor. “I should go back to my own room now Sandor, I’m warm and I’m sure you want peace, not me prattling on until dawn.”

Sandor frowned, jaw tightening and Beric braced himself for a swift punch to his jaw, of course the Hound wouldn’t like to be sharing a bed with a man who was a Knight of Calamus. But the hit never came, instead Beric felt the hand on his shoulder grip his arm a little and give a squeeze. And then another when Beric refused to look at the Hound. When Beric eventually turned his eye and his head to look into the face of the Hound he didn’t expect to see sympathy in those eyes, nor the way his face had softened. 

“Your crying.” it wasn’t a question.

“Aye.” Beric couldn’t reach to wipe it off his nose, not before Sandor did it for him, his cool hand coming up to gently rub the wetness away with his thumb. 

Sandor wiped his hand on the blankets and laid back down, making the decision that Beric was staying by letting his arm rest over the smaller man’s stomach. “He didn’t tell you that he wasn't in love with you did he?”

Beric laughed sadly. “He did in a way, slept with me twice and then he was with someone else the next night, drunk out of his mind. But that was how Thoros has always been.” Beric hummed softly when he felt Sandor lightly rub his side, one of the scars he’s gained under that hand. “Careful there, still hurts.”

“I can imagine.” Sandor grumbled, rubbing his own face onto one of the two pillows he had nicked from the quartermaster. He paused in his ministrations which caused Beric to tense again. “You said my name. Not my house name. Mine.”

Beric kept his lips closed and eye to the ceiling. “Aye, I did.”

It was then that Beric felt Sandor tug him into his chest, laying flush from knees to chest to shoulder. Beric felt a little awkward from how he was lying but it took a little shifting until he was face to face with Sandor. He felt more comfortable, better positioned for his back and legs than where Sandor had dragged him to. It was the perfect position for Beric to lean in and kiss the man he had been interested in for a while. But he didn’t take the final step, instead he looked at the face of a man who had never been in bed with a man before, who had never really shared a bed with anyone before. Sure the Hound would have laid with whores in King’s Landing, but this was new to the big guy, just laying down with someone that he didn’t pay for.

Beric looked right back, letting himself scoot closer and pushing his own arm around Sandor’s side to hold on. 

“You going to kiss me like they do in stories or whatever the like?” his voice was gravelly, grumbly, a warm sound to Beric’s ears. 

He smirked and chuckled. “Only if you want me to, there’s no point in angering my warm bed for the night now is there?” Beric watched Sandor weigh what that would mean. Watched the man look at Beric’s mouth in the dim candle light, watched his brow pinch together, and watched him scratch his bottom lip with his teeth. 

“I don’t know if I want you to or not. Never kissed anybody that I remember.” He sniffed and let his breath out in a gust between them. 

“Then I won’t. It’s much too late at night to be having a crisis about a kiss.” Beric purred, not meaning to, but he was comfortable, and sleepy, and Sandor was basically a very large pup rather than a vicious hound. Nervous at the idea and even more so at what it could mean for him. “Relax Clegane, close your eyes and get some sleep tonight.” Beric closed his own eye, expecting Sandor to do the same. 

He felt a warm and scratchy pressure against his lips, beards bristling against each other as Sandor leaned in to press a closed mouth kiss against his own closed lips. Beric smiled slightly. 

“I like it when you say my actual name, makes me feel more human than dog.” Was the whisper that followed. 

Beric opened his eye again, leaned in to where Sandor had pulled back to, and slowly leaned in for a second kiss, again it was chaste, but warm and comforting. The soft hiss of air from Sandor’s nose was sweet to Beric’s ears, letting him know it was welcomed. He felt Sandor press a little firmer and Beric met him with it. They pulled away and were barely an inch apart on the pillow, allowing them to think through their kisses. 

“That wasn’t so bad now was it?” Beric smiled, crows feet well defined at the sides of his eyes, and his dimples just showing under his beard. “Quite nice for a pity kiss.”

“Pity?” Sandor scoffed. “I wouldn’t have kissed you if it was in pity. I may have seen the way you look at Thoros but that doesn’t make me blind to the way you’ve treated me since the beginning either. Pity kiss-” Sandor trailed off in a grunt. 

“Then I’m losing my mystic touch.” Beric murmured, feeling Sandor tuck him in against his chest, letting his chin rest on dirty red-blond hair. 

“No. You aren’t. I’m just slightly soft on you.” Sandor confessed, feeling Beric smile again and nuzzle right into his neck, breathing delightfully hot air against his cold skin. 

“Glad to know Sandor Clegane. Glad to know. Now get some sleep while you can because the light will be here faster than we want.”

“Aye, it will be.” Sandor rubbed at Beric’s back until they had both dozed off and into sleep.


End file.
